Understand Alexa for Business

Alexa for Business makes it easy for you to use Alexa in your organization. Alexa for Business provides tools to manage Alexa devices, enroll users, and configure skills across those devices. You can build your own context-aware voice skills using the Alexa Skills Kit (ASK) and conferencing device APIs, and you can make them available as private skills for your organization.

Set up Alexa devices in your business

Use the Alexa for Business console provided by Amazon Web Services (AWS) to provision and manage shared Alexa devices in your organization. With Alexa for Business, you can set up multiple Alexa devices at the same time, and register them to your business. You can specify device locations, assign skills to the devices, and manage device settings.

For information about setting up Alexa for Business to work with Alexa Built-in products, see Build with Alexa for Business in the Alexa Voice Service (AVS) documentation.

Find or create skills for your business

With Alexa for Business, you can configure any skill in the Alexa Skills store or you can create your own skills for Alexa using the Alexa Skill Kit.

You can create:

Custom skills - Create custom skills to help employees complete business-specific tasks such as finding the nearest printer, location of a building, the meaning of a term that is specific to your business. You create and control the voice model so the possibilities are endless. To get started with custom skills, see Understanding Custom Skills.

Flash Briefing skills - Create a company specific daily or weekly briefing for company employees. The voice interaction model is handled by Alexa so it is easy to create a Flash Briefing skill. To get started with Flash Briefing skills, see Understand Flash Briefing Skills

Skills for conferencing and other smart devices - Enable your employees to walk into a conference room and ask Alexa to start their meeting, turn on a device or turn the volume up and down. Skills for conferencing devices leverage the device APIs and build on the existing smart home voice interaction model. This means the voice interactions are handled by Alexa so you don't need to define it. For more information, see Build Skills for Conferencing Devices.

Distribute skills in the Alexa Skills store or privately

You can choose to distribute them to customers across multiple businesses by completing the skill certification process and making them publicly available in the Alexa Skills store. Alternatively, you can use the Skill Management API to bypass the certification process and distribute skills privately to your Alexa for Business account. When you create a private skill, you control who has access to it. For more information, see the Create and Publish Private Skills topic. Currently you can choose private distribution for custom, smart home and Flash Briefing skill types.